February 15, 2007
First they deny science, then all of reality, then they deny that they denied. Or something like that.
Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges denies having written or sent the memorandum that was circulated in his name to Texas state legislators earlier this week. The Atlanta Constitution provides the incredible details in this morning’s edition:
“I did not put it out nor did I know it was going out,” Bridges said. “I’m not defending it or taking up for it.”
The memo directs supporters to call Marshall Hall, president of the Fair Education Foundation Inc., a Cornelia, Ga.-based organization that seeks to show evolution is a myth. Hall said he showed Bridges the text of the memo and got his permission to distribute it.
“I gave him a copy of it months ago,” said Hall, a retired high school teacher. “I had already written this up as an idea to present to him so he could see what it was and what we were thinking.”
Hall said his wife Bonnie has served as Bridges’ campaign manager since 1996.
Bridges acknowledged that he talked to Hall about filing legislation this year that would end the teaching of evolution in Georgia’s public schools. Bridges said the views in the memo belong to Hall, though Bridges said he doesn’t necessarily disagree with them.
It’s getting so creationists no only can’t do science straight, can’t do religion straight — they can’t even tell whoppers straight. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 24, 2007
Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered the State of the Union speech for 1941 on January 6. Eleven months and one day later, Japan attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. I have been fascinated by Roosevelt’s clear statement of the freedoms he thought worth fighting for, especially considering that most Americans at that moment did not consider it desirable or probable that the U.S. would get involved in the war that raged across the Pacific and Atlantic.
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, August 9, 1941; aboard the U.S.S. Augusta, in the Atlantic. Library of Congress.
Here is an excerpt of the speech, the final few paragraphs:
I have called for personal sacrifice, and I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call. A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my budget message I will recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying for today. No person should try, or be allowed to get rich out of the program, and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.
If the Congress maintains these principles the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause. Read the rest of this entry »
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11 Comments | 1941-1945, Accuracy, Famous quotes, Franklin Roosevelt, Free speech, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History, Lesson plans, Presidents, Quotes, Religious Freedom, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 16, 2007
Today, January 16, is the anniversary of Virginia’s enacting the Statute for Religious Freedom, in 1786. It deserves an international celebration.
After working with George Mason and the kid, James Madison, to craft Viriginia’s Bill of Rights in 1776, Thomas Jefferson was dispatched as a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Being assigned to Philadelphia was a bother to Jefferson — the real action, he thought, was in Virginia, where a new form of government was being crafted, where Virginians were working to determine what was the best government to assure the most freedom for free peoples. Jefferson was called on to draft what became the Declaration of Independence, a task and accomplishment he later grew to appreciate. Still, he wanted to go back to Virginia, and soon.
When Jefferson got back to Virginia, he spent much of his time doing exactly what he thought was the good stuff: Crafting a good government for a good nation, Virginia. Among other things he served as governor, and he wrote about 150 model laws for the good government he so earnestly hoped to see. In 1779, he wrote a law to cement the religious freedom James Madison had persuaded Mason and Jefferson to include in the Virginia Bill of Rights. But the law languished in a busy legislature still working to win the right to make that government work, in a war with Britain. Jefferson wrote about his successes and failures, as a record for others (see Notes on the State of Virginia).
By 1785, Jefferson had been called to the post-war ambassadorship of the confederation of thirteen colonies to France. When Patrick Henry rose in the legislature in Williamsburg to proposed that Virginia rethink its disestablishment of religion, to at last consider paying clergy for teaching kids, Jefferson sat unaware on the other side of the Atlantic. James Madison saw the full import of Henry’s proposal, though. While noting that a country like Virginia should desire education for its youth and morality as part of the instruction, such an action as Henry proposed was tantamount to picking a religion — shouldn’t the people have a chance to weigh in on the issue? Madison proposed to put the issue over to the next session of the legislature, in 1786, and the Virginia Assembly approved Madison’s proposal. Read the rest of this entry »
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4 Comments | Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, First Amendment, George Washington, History, James Madison, Politics, Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 3, 2007
Step right up — not even one thin dime, not even one-tenth of a dollar!
The 29th Carnival of the Liberals is up over at Daylight Atheism.
And one of my blog posts is included, the one where I take Roy Moore to task for his uncharitable, anti-American views on having a Moslem in Congress. And while this is a blog of history, events have overtaken that post on the day the Carnival set up its tents — Rep. Ellison creatively pointed out the value of religious freedom and tied it to the founders (go see how.)
Go see the Carnival of the Liberals — there are a lot of posts noted there that are worthy of your attention.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
1 Comment | Current History, First Amendment, Politics, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
January 3, 2007
The good news is that Russian high school biology textbooks talk about Darwin, at long last, after the 74-year rule of the Communists decimated the corps of teachers who taught Darwinian evolution, partly because Darwin was ‘too bourgeois.’
The bad news is that Russian creationists, with what appears to be the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, are suing to bring back the old Stalinist views that Darwin was wrong. The case is loaded with irony, not the least that Theodosius Dobzhansky, the famous biologist who noted that biology is only clear under the light of evolution theory, was devoutly Russian Orthodox.
This case appears to have gone on for some time, but details are only now coming to these shores. The Baltimore Sun had a story on the case today. And, as if one would not guess, it appears the case is brought by a public relations company — perhaps the Moscow branch of the Swift Boat Veterans?
Tip of the scrub brush to Panda’s Thumb, where there is guaranteed to be more discussion of the issue.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
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Posted by Ed Darrell
January 3, 2007
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., delivered a lesson to critics today on the value of knowing history.
First, Los Angeles conservative radio host Dennis Prager embarrassed himself by calling on Ellison to use a Christian Bible to put his left hand on while being sworn in as a Member of Congress, the first Moslem to be a Member. Ellison pointed out that in the swearing-in ceremony, no book is used, and noted that other religious texts have been used by people of other faiths during the photo session afterward, when members re-enact the swearing in with the Speaker of the House. Prager compounded his history sins by refusing to back down. Ellison correctly stood his ground.
Then Virginia’s U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode pushed it farther, warning that unless we control immigration, Ellison will be the beachhead for a Moslem take-over of Congress. Ellison, defending the Bill of Rights, stood his ground and refused to get into a name-calling discussion.
Then Roy Moore of Alabama, who was rejected by voters for governor after having made a spectacle of himself and the Alabama Supreme Court over his efforts to install his own religious shrine in the Supreme Court Building, called for Ellison to be denied his seat. Ellison coolly ignored Moore, defending the First Amendment instead.
Now Ellison has acted, and his action comprises a neat, clean and witty rebuttal to the critics.
Read the rest of this entry »
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4 Comments | First Amendment, History, Leadership, Politics, Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 26, 2006
While denying that they have any racist or other xenophobic intent, critics of Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, like the abominable Dennis Prager, continue to try to gin up reasons why he cannot carry his own scriptures to Congress, why he cannot have the rights that every school child in America has, because the scriptures Ellison carries are Islamic.
Except for Roy Moore, the Xian Nationalist, unreconstructed Christian Reconstructionist, and Christian Dominionist who probably got the memorandum about how they aren’t supposed to talk about it in public, but who lets it fly anyway.
Representing the Great Booboisie, Roy Moore says Ellison should not be seated in Congress at all.
Alabama’s voters were wise to reject Roy Moore as governor, after Moore burned the people so badly when they trusted him to be chief justice of the state’s supreme court, and he instead turned the court into a circus of religious pomposity and disregard for the laws of religious freedom. Another History Blog Fisks the manifold, manifest errors Moore makes.
I cannot escape the feeling that Moore is speaking for most Reconstructionists and Dominionists, Read the rest of this entry »
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9 Comments | Accuracy, America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bill of Rights, Bogus history, Civil Rights, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Good Quotes, History Revisionism, Patriotism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 23, 2006
It was just sad when Dennis Prager prostituted U.S. history to rant at Minnesota’s U.S. Representative-elect Keith Ellison, for Ellison’s having said he’d use his faith’s scriptures for a staged photograph commemorating his being sworn in as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Ignorance can be so ugly.
It was jarring when so many others demonstrated their ignorance of the First Amendment and Constitutional history by repeating Prager’s concerns. Ignorance is contagious.
It was tragic when a few people, after having had a chance to repent of their ignorance, then mounted an assault on the Constitution by continuing to demand something was wrong with the situation, even calling for Ellison to give up his faith for the ceremony. Ignorance can be cured, why would anyone reject the cure?
It’s time to stop piling stupidity on stupidity: Rep. Virgil Goode (ironically named, no doubt), a Republican representing much of southern Virginia in the U.S. House (5th District) took aim at Ellison’s election itself, calling for “immigration reform” to prevent a Muslim takeover of Congress.
Goode’s comments are insensitive, xenophobic, insulting, demonstrative of ignorance, and just wrong on so many counts it is hard to determine which rebuttal is more important. So, random rebuttals follow. [I’ve come back to this four times today. It makes me amazingly angry, and I have to take a break.] Read the rest of this entry »
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
6 Comments | Bogus history, Education, First Amendment, Holocaust, Patriotism, Politics, Religious Freedom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 21, 2006
Williams College Prof. Mark Taylor has another facet to the question of whether we teach about religion in schools, in an opposite-editorial page article in the December 21 New York Times titled “The Devoted Student” (subscription required after December 28, 2006). Taylor wrote:
Today, professors invite harassment or worse by including “unacceptable” books on their syllabuses or by studying religious ideas and practices in ways deemed improper by religiously correct students.
Distinguished scholars at several major universities in the United States have been condemned, even subjected to death threats, for proposing psychological, sociological or anthropological interpretations of religious texts in their classes and published writings. In the most egregious cases, defenders of the faith insist that only true believers are qualified to teach their religious tradition.
This contrasts interestingly, and vexingly, with trends like the Texas high schools who teach the Bible as history, many of whom probably cross the line into advocacy for religion according to one study.
So, on one hand we get religious fanatics who want the Bible taught as a faith document in high schools. On the other hand, the students at whom those classes are aimed want it taught only one way, their way, when they get it. There is no thought of actually learning beyond what the fanatics want to learn.
Alan Bloom was wrong: THIS is the closing of the American mind.
Taylor ends his piece with a warning:
Until recently, many influential analysts argued that religion, a vestige of an earlier stage of human development, would wither away as people became more sophisticated and rational. Obviously, things have not turned out that way. Indeed, the 21st century will be dominated by religion in ways that were inconceivable just a few years ago. Religious conflict will be less a matter of struggles between belief and unbelief than of clashes between believers who make room for doubt and those who do not.
The warning signs are clear: unless we establish a genuine dialogue within and among all kinds of belief, ranging from religious fundamentalism to secular dogmatism, the conflicts of the future will probably be even more deadly.
Case in point: This discussion at Pharyngula.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
5 Comments | Curricula, First Amendment, Religious Freedom, Texas, Texas Freedom Network | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
December 3, 2006
Conservative, sometimes-rational commentator Dennis Prager is in a dudgeon because someone suggested that our first Muslim Member of Congress might take his oath of office on the Qur’an, rather than a Bible. Prager’s irrational rant demands that Congressmen Keith Ellison of Minnesota be stripped of his religious freedom (really — go see). He claims, using bogus history, that swearing without a Bible would be a first. That’s dead wrong.
Then-State Rep. Keith Ellison speaks at a Macalester College seminar on environmental justice and human rights, in February 2006. On November 7, Ellison was elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Congress, the first Muslim to be elected. Photo from Macalester College, American Studies Department.
Prager claims in his bio to have done graduate study. Would it be too much to expect him to understand the U.S. Constitution?
First, the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone from requiring any official elected to federal, state or local office, from having to take any oath on any religious book. Really. It’s in Article VI: Read the rest of this entry »
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14 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Current History, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 27, 2006
A fellow named Daniel J. Lewis asked for a debate with P. Z. Myers on . . . well, it’s difficult to say, really. Lewis is a creationist, affiliated with the group “Answers in Genesis” — Ken Ham’s group that has a museum in Kentucky ready to open, touting the hypothesis that Hanna-Barbera was not far off of reality with “The Flintstones” humans and dinosaurs coexisted (go to the link, click on exhibit #19). Anyway, PZ asked the regulars to lie low for a while at let Lewis expound. Not likely to happen on a blog that has tens of thousands of readers daily, right?
The premise that Lewis wants to start from is problematical, so I invited him to come by here someday and have a more leisurely chat, where there are far fewer people waiting to pounce on every error. If Lewis ever drops by, this is the thread. This is what Lewis said at Pharyngula:
Then if the blog administrator allows it, I’m available to publicly discuss creation vs. evolution if we can do so on level, intelligent grounds without childish attacks. You can start with your belief system (naturalism), and I can start with mine (the Bible).
I find that a problem because it assumes that science requires a specific belief system contrary to Christianity, and it assumes the Bible establishes a complete philosophical foundation for Christians, which seems awfully narrow to me. Plus, I don’t trust a creationist to define what “naturalism” means as a philosophy, or that science must be bound by that definition. So, in the discussion thread, I said:
Nothing in the Bible contradicts anything Darwin proposed, unless and except we insist on a Darbyist interpretation of scripture only. Is there any tenet of Christianity, especially one based in the Bible, which suggests God couldn’t have created an evolutionary system to make life diverse? Is there any tenet which requires any opposition to evolution or any other finding of science?
When you’re done here, Mr. Lewis, if you’re ever done, c’mon over to my blog and start in again.
Meanwhile, there is some rational discussion on the issue over at a fellow Texan’s blog, A Nerd’s Country Journal (tip of the old scrub brush to Carnival of the Godless #54). That’s a neat summary of my view, consistent with the error debunking goal of this blog: Creationism is bad religion not keeping with the tenets of Christianity, in addition to being really, really bad science.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
6 Comments | Accuracy, Bogus history, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Religious Freedom, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 22, 2006
It is the day before Thanksgiving, a holiday generally associated with the English colonists of New England. What better time to re-run a piece on the Mayflower Compact and its religious implications? Originally, this desultory ran here, on July 26, 2006.
Dispatches from the Culture Wars features a set of comments on an interview right-right-wing pundit John Lofton did with Roy Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court who lost his job when he illegally tried to force his religion on the court and on Alabama. This year Moore ran for governor of Alabama, losing in the primary election.
One of the grandest canards in current thought about U.S. history is that the Mayflower Compact set up a theocracy in Massachusetts. Lofton and Moore banter about it as if it were well established fact — or as if, as I suspect, neither of them has looked at the thing in a long time, and that neither of them has ever diagrammed the operative sentence in the thing.
The Mayflower Compact was an agreement between the people in two religiously disparate groups, that among them they would fairly establish a governing body to fairly make laws, and that they would abide by those laws. Quite the opposite of a theocracy, this was the first time Europeans set up in the New World a government by consent of the governed.
That is something quite different from a theocracy. Read the rest of this entry »
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10 Comments | America's founding, Bad Quotes, Bogus history, Good Quotes, History, History Revisionism, Religious Freedom, Thanksgiving, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 1, 2006
Conservatives complain constantly that “mainstream media” (or “MSM” as it is usually abbreviated in right-wing blogs, derisively) are biased to the left. That’s much contrary to my experience, as a reporter, as a PR flack, and as a consumer of news.
I do expect a striving for balance, however. So I was surprised to find, in an on-line test of American history and government at the site of Newsweek Magazine, that conservative misinformation about religious freedom had crept into “MSM.” A poster, Bernarda, pointed to the poll in comments to an earlier post.
When I saw this question, I rather expected Newsweek might have made the turn to the right — but I answered as the law is anyway. As you can see from what I copied off the answer screen, below, Newsweek’s poll said the legal answer is wrong:
| |
2. The idea that in America there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state appears in:
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The Constitution is not correct.
Thomas Jefferson’s letters
—Percentage of seniors who scored correctly: 27.2 percent
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The idea that there should be a wall of separation between church and state was rather carefully and ambitiously developed in law by George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in Virginia, starting in 1776 with the Virginia Bill of Rights, and perhaps climaxing in 1786 when Madison engineered the passage of Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom (one of the three things Jefferson thought noteworthy for his tombstone, above even his two-terms as president), and continuing through the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Read the rest of this entry »
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2 Comments | 1776, America's founding, First Amendment, History Revisionism, Religious Freedom, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
September 16, 2006
If you’re interested only in history and education, and if you think there is no overlap between the people who try to censor biology textbooks and those who try to “reform” history books, you may go to the next post and skip this one.
Quote accuracy is a big deal to me. When creationists can’t look you square in the eye and tell the truth about what another human being said, they lose my confidence, and their arguments lose credence. I think all scholars and policy discussants have an obligation to readers, policy makers, and the future, to try to get right quotations of famous people. I think this responsbility is particularly important in health and science issues. It was in the vein of checking out the accuracy and veracity of quotes from creationist publications some (okay — many) years ago for a minor issue Congress was dealing with that I discovered the depths of depravity to which creationists stoop to try to make their case that creationism is science and should be taught in public school science classes — or that evolution is evil, and shouldn’t be taught at all. Famous writings of great men like Charles Darwin regularly undergo a savage editor’s knife to make it appear he wrote things quite contrary to what he wrote with regard to science and evolution, or to make it appear that Darwin was a cruel or evil man — of which he was quite the opposite.
With the great benefit of having the Library of Congress across the street, I would occasionally track down obscure sources of “quotes” from scientists, only to discover in almost every case where creationists claimed science was evil, or wrong, that the creationist tracts had grotesquely distorted the text they cited. It was as if the creationist authors had been infected with a virus that made them utterly incapable of telling the truth on certain things.
Over the years I have observed that dedicated creationists tend to lose the ability to tell when they have stepped over the line in editing a quotation, and have instead changed the meaning of a quotation to fit their own ends. This the inherent dishonesty of creationism. It affects — it infects — almost all creationists to one degree or another. Many creationists seem to be under the influence of a virus that renders them incapable of telling a straight story about science, or Darwin.
I ran into a raging case recently. It would be amusing if not for the fact that the creationist seems to be an otherwise rational person.
Read the rest of this entry »
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13 Comments | Accuracy, Bad Quotes, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, Ethics, Evolution, First Amendment, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Public education, Religious Freedom, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
September 15, 2006
Last year the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) published a revealing study showing that most curricula for Bible study in public schools promote Christian faith more than they study the Bible. The study was done by a witty and amusing professor of religion from Southern Methodist University, Dr. Mark Chancey.
This week they followed up that study with a detailed look at Bible studies courses in Texas public schools, as they are actually presented to students. It’s not pretty.
In their press release, TFN said:
Clergy, Parents Voice Concerns About Public School Bible Classes
New Report Reveals Poor Quality, Bias, Religious Agendas in Texas Courses
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2006
AUSTIN – Clergy and parents are voicing serious concerns that Bible classes in Texas public schools are of poor quality and promote religious views that discriminate against children from a variety of faith backgrounds.
“The study of the Bible deserves the same respect as the study of Huck Finn, Shakespeare and the Constitution,” said the Rev. Dr. Roger Paynter, pastor of First Baptist Church of Austin. “But in some public schools, Bible courses are being used to promote an agenda rather than to enrich the education of our schoolchildren.”
Dr. Chancey is a solid scholar of the Bible. His criticisms are detailed and often understated, in a business where criticism is generally more hyperbole than substance. Especially if you live in Texas, you should read the report.
In the original study, Chancey noted that some nationally-promoted curricula for Bible studies had plagiarized some of their most important materials, in one case including the entire section on honesty as defined by the Ten Commandments. Dr. Chancey does not write drily — he really does a great job turning words. Both studies are well worth the reading.
First Amendment charlatans are fond of quoting the Supreme Court’s decisions in school-and-religion cases since World War II, in which the Court urges critical studies of scripture, saying such studies are legal and good. Then the charlatans go on to advocate Bible studies that are devotional, confusing a Sunday school class-style of scripture study with the critical literature study the Court actually urged. These reports leave little room for squirming by those advocates.
Last time around, TFN held a meeting here in Dallas featuring Dr. Chancey talking about the report and the reaction to it from the religious right (they were stunned into saying many really stupid things). It was a fun night, and I hope TFN will do it again.
Other coverage of the report:
If you see a particularly good story on the study, will you please send me a link?
Patriots and Christians don’t let children take crappy Bible studies courses:
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81 Comments | Creationism, Curricula, Education, Education quality, First Amendment, Plagiarism, Public education, Religious Freedom, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Textbook Selection | Tagged: Creationism, Curricula, Education, Education quality, First Amendment, Plagiarism, Public education, Religious Freedom, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Textbook Selection | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 